Alec Baldwin Wants ‘Rust’ Special Prosecutor Tossed Off Case; 1st AD Added To D.A.’s Witness List In Blow To Defense

deadline.com:

The first court hearing over the involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin and Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed stemming from the October 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins isn’t for a couple of weeks, but already the sharp-elbowed legal battle between the actor and Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies has begun.

One day after Rust 1st assistant director David Halls was added to the prosecution’s already deep-bench witness list, lawyers for Baldwin are now trying to get the D.A.-appointed special prosecutor thrown off the case. “Ms.

Reeb’s continued service as a special prosecutor in this case is unconstitutional,” lead defense attorney Lubke Nikas said Tuesday in a motion to disqualify recently elected GOP state legislator Andrea Reeb from the high-profile case and subsequent trial. “The legal question is not a close one.

She must be disqualified.” “Under Section 1 of Article III of the New Mexico Constitution, however, a sitting member of the Legislature may not ‘exercise any powers properly belonging’ to either the executive or judicial branch,” the NYC-based Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan lawyer added in the motion (read it here). “As a special prosecutor, Representative Reeb is vested by statute with ‘all the powers and duties’ of a District Attorney, who is considered to be a member of either the judicial or executive branch of the New Mexico government.” Picked by Carmack-Altwies last year near the conclusion of the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office’s long-awaited investigation into what really happened that terrible October 21, 2021 day on the Rust set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, longtime lawyer Reeb was elected as a Republican in November last year to serve the 64th